Oh my, how much I hated all the players around me constantly talking about “you have to have balls to play”, “your creativity lies within your dick” and all kinds of other genital references. In some groups that was the only mode of conversation.

I was always uncomfortable with it and thought, oh well, it’s just trash talk. But the older I get the more I realize that some of the guys actually meant this seriously and believed it. Which is outrageous and infuriating. But what I never understood was, how these guys could be so insensitive and outright brutal with their statements yet at the same time create wonderful music. This was always a cognitive dissonance in me.

Given Kalia’s record of having to attend all kinds of official school breakfasts, meetings and happenings, all the guys would probably see this as a huge networking advantage and her way of “sleeping her way up”. I’m glad I’ve read her account of it which shows clearly that being the “token girl” is a terrible situation.

But when Chinese counterfeiters tool up and make copies of your product, send that inventory to Amazon, then overtake the real product’s buy box by auto-lowering the price – it’s a real problem. Customers are unknowinglybuying crap versions of the product, while both Amazon and the scammers are profiting, and the reputation you’ve built goes down the toilet.